Methods in Comparative Functional Ecology

Functional plant ecology arises, therefore, as an essentially comparative science concerned with the elucidation of the range of variations in functional properties among plants and the search for patterns and functional laws accounting for this variation. The success and the limitations of comparative functional plant ecology depend on the choices of approach made, involving the aims and scope of the comparison, as well as the methods to achieve them. The screening approach may, if pursued further, generate an encyclopedic catalog of details on functional properties of different plants. The quest to describe the diversity of extant plants and the identification of the basic mechanisms that allow them to occupy different environments have shifted scientists' attention from ancient Greece to the present. The plant functions that represent the core of present efforts in functional plant ecology are those by which plants influence ecosystem functions, particularly those that influence the services and products provided by ecosystems.